


Known Truths

by mautadite



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 18:21:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3820252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mautadite/pseuds/mautadite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s not like… <i>love</i> love.”</p><p>Garnet stares down at Pearl for a good ten seconds.</p><p>“You just repeated the same word, saying it with a different inflection each time,” she observes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Known Truths

**Author's Note:**

> *cups fandom gently by the face* Listen to me.
> 
> Pearlnet is never over.

Steven’s hair goes every which way when he sleeps. Pearl trims it for him every month or so, but it catches back its length very quickly, and in slumber it separates into little tufts, stickling up all over his head, slicked down on his forehead with sweat. Only Steven could look so unkempt and adorable at the same time.

She’s putting him to rights, smoothing his hair back very gently, when Garnet warps in. Pearl gives a little start, but doesn’t try to hide; she’s already been seen, and it would be silly to try to prevaricate now. Tucking the last little curl behind his ear, she backs away and tiptoes down the stairs, already feeling the coolness spreading across her cheeks. Garnet is sitting near the pad, waiting for her. Her skin is burnished and glowing, and she radiates heat.

“That’s pretty weird,” she says without a greeting. Pearl blushes harder.

“It’s not…! I’m just… it’s perfectly…” Pearl deflates. “Oh, it _is_ really weird, isn’t it?”

She sits next to Garnet with a sigh, one of her hands automatically reaching for Garnet’s arm. Within a few seconds, she withdraws it, and then biting back another sigh, she places the hand on Garnet’s leg. This is a habit she’s been trying to break for decades now. Garnet doesn’t react to the advancing and retreating touches; she only adjusts her shades as she tilts her head up to Steven’s bedroom.

“He’s going to wake up and catch you one of these days,” Garnet says.

“I know,” Pearl frets. “And I guess I’ll have to think of something to tell him!” she continues with a little high pitched laugh that makes her clear her throat immediately afterwards. 

“I thought you had stopped. After his fifth birthday party, you said you would.”

His fifth birthday… Pearl remembers it well. The gems had been mystified at the thought of celebrating the survival of such a paltry sum of years, but Greg had insisted. And Steven had been so thrilled, running around with his new cars and dolls and telling everyone with auditory functions that he was ‘a big boy now’. It hurts Pearl’s heart to think of him, Rose’s gem glinting in his pudgy belly as he begged them all to play with him in turn. It’s a wonderful memory, but it hurts anyway. Pearl’s no stranger to the fact that love and pain are sometimes star and starlight to one another.

“I did stop! For a while…” She looks up, and sees Garnet’s lips twitch. An answering smile worries itself to life on her mouth. “I just… I worry.”

Obvious as it must be, it feels good to admit it. Without her leave, her hand trails up to Garnet’s once again, and her fingers lace through that of her friend’s. It doesn’t feel quite right, however, and she slips her hand back.

“You worry too much,” Garnet says matter-of-factly; not a reprimand, just an observation. “But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t too.” The hand that Pearl held seconds before alights briefly on her shoulder. “It’s part of our jobs to worry.”

Pearl smiles up at her, twisting her fingers together in her lap.

“Well! I did think you would agree on some level. Thank you for saying that.”

“…You still worry too much, though. It’s my job more than yours.”

Pearl smiles again, her face flushed. She’s still quite terrible at sussing out when Garnet is teasing but she’s almost sure she’s got it right this time. So she doesn’t trouble to answer. They sit in silence for a spell, watching the moon’s beam of light where it casts gloomy shadows onto the furniture, listening to Steven’s soft snores. Garnet’s hand is resting on her thigh now; Pearl places her own hand on top of it. No… still not right.

She expects Garnet to get up and leave; by the look of it, she’s been checking on Vesuvius again, and she’s always quick to bubble and examine whatever she finds there. But Garnet remains, looking up towards the place where Steven sleeps, not making any move to go. Pearl’s taught herself to be mindful of human time over the years, and it’s just after three o’clock in the morning. Still a long while until Steven will be up and about. They sit together in the stillness.

“Thank you,” Pearl blurts out suddenly, and has just enough time to start to regret the outburst before Garnet cocks her head at her. She feels herself turning blue already.

“What for?”

“Oh… everything.” Pearl toys with the hem of her skirt. She’s been shifting her apparel into something akin to this for nigh on a decade now. Rose, perusing one of her books, had seen a picture of a human ballerina, and remarked how much the girl reminded her of Pearl, with all her grace and poise. Pearl’s pleasant shock had only been magnified when Garnet had glanced over, and agreed. Pearl has been living on those words and that look for years. 

Her friend is watching her expectantly. Pearl shrugs, and she can feel her gem thrilling gently from within, the way it does when she’s nervous.

“Really! For everything. You do so much for us, Garnet. You… you always have, honestly. I think we’ve gotten so used to it that we don’t tell you how much we appreciate it.”

Garnet’s expression doesn’t change, not in any way that Pearl can discern.

“If you could swim in lava, I’d expect you to pull your weight too.”

Pearl fluffs up, a little flustered at the deadpan teasing.

“It’s more than that.” She smacks Garnet gently on the thigh, and then hurries to rub the spot apologetically, even though she knows Garnet probably didn’t even register the tap. “You know it.”

“Don’t thank me Pearl. I do it because I love you.”

Oh. Pearl doesn’t need to breathe, but she finds herself taking a shuddering breath. The oxygen or something else does something funny to her chest. A known truth can still have an impact when given air and spoken aloud; this is another thing she knows from experience.

“Well, of course, I know you love us as a family—”

“Yes, and you.” Garnet adjusts her shades again, looking down at her with what Pearl imagines must be particularly piercing eyes. Sometimes she’s grateful for the shades, as it means she doesn’t have to bear the brunt of that gaze, but other times she remembers that it’s just a contraption of gem and light, and doesn’t stop Garnet from seeing all.

“And me?” she squawks.

“Yes, you.” There’s the slightest furrow in her lips. “I care for our family very much, but I also loved Rose specifically, and I love Amethyst specifically, and I love you, Pearl, specifically.”

She says the words so clearly and baldly, and Pearl feels like she shouldn’t be embarrassed, but she is. She clears her throat several times, hands fluttering. All of a sudden, she’s very conscious of how close she’s sitting, how close she always sits or stands or hovers, how much she’s touched Garnet tonight for no reason at all, how much she does it all the time. It can’t have escaped Garnet’s notice.

“Yes… well, you know I… thank you for saying that!” By the stars, she sounds ridiculous, like some kind of gem-cracked fool. “You don’t have to say it, though. I know you care for me, of course you do, but I’m aware it’s not like… like Ruby and Sapphire’s love, for example.”

Garnet cocks her head, blank-faced, and is clearly waiting for an explanation. Pearl fumbles.

“It’s not like… _love_ love.”

Garnet stares down at her for a good ten seconds.

“You just repeated the same word, saying it with a different inflection each time,” she observes.

Pearl gives a laugh that’s a bit more of a shriek than she’d like to admit. 

“Heavens, I did, didn’t I? I’m sorry, it’s a human verbal tick that I picked up from who knows where. Amethyst, probably. The way they contort and shape their language is fascinating. Why in just a thousand paltry years, look how much the English language alone has changed! I could write a book on the subject. Maybe I should. I’d have to go away for a while of course but I think it’s all for the best—”

“Pearl.”

She shuts up.

Garnet has doffed her shades. She has twisted her body and taken hold of Pearl’s arms, one elbow in each hand, Ruby and Sapphire on her left and on her right. Pearl looks up at her, trying to return her gaze. She always forgets how expressive Garnet is without the shades. Her eyes say so much, and right now they are urging Pearl to be still.

“You worry too much,” she says, and kisses her. 

Garnet is just as warm as she looks, and it’s like everything that Pearl loves all at once: the heat of an engine, the warmth of a crashing comet, the gentle fire of a heart. They haven’t done this in some time, this gesture that never seems to carry less weight, not even after all the long millennia of their existence. Pearl sags against her, feeling giddy as she feels everything that Garnet doesn’t say. It’s in the sweep of her hands, Ruby on her neck, Sapphire at the small of her back, in the firm press of her lips. _What kind of gems love like this_ , Onyx had asked once, years and years ago. Affection isn’t foreign to gemkind, but the four – _five_ – of them had always had something a little different. Pearl isn’t sure she knows the answer, but she doesn’t ever want to stop. 

The kiss lengthens, and Pearl draws herself as close as she can get.

It’s a while before Garnet pulls away. When she does, Pearl comes back to herself to find that her arms are wound around her friend’s neck, and one of her legs has somehow, during the kiss, hooked itself around one of Garnet’s thick thighs. She climbs down, flushing to her roots.

“Goodness,” she mumbles, laughing a little breathlessly. “How did _that_ get there?”

Garnet replaces her shades with the flick of a wrist.

“You’re welcome,” she says.

“I… what?”

“You said thank you to me a while ago. Now I’m saying you’re welcome.”

“Oh!” For a moment she’d thought that she hadn’t seemed appreciative enough of the kiss, and she’d been about to assure Garnet wholeheartedly and sincerely that she’d loved it, as she loves all of Garnet’s kisses. From the miniscule twitch of Garnet’s mouth, she’s well aware.

“Now I’m holding out my hand to you,” Garnet says, and does just that. Pearl blinks at it for a moment. She can’t remember the last time Garnet _offered_ Pearl her hand to hold. After a moment, she inches her hand forward, lets their fingers come into contact with a slow slide, their palms rubbing together. Garnet’s thumb grazes her knuckles, and Pearl heaves a satisfied breath, feeling her gem thrill warmly. It’s a perfect fit.

“And now we’re going to spar,” Garnet finishes decisively.

“We are?” 

“If I leave you here, are you gonna go back to watching Steven sleep?”

“I… well, yes.”

Garnet says nothing else, only gives another one of those twitchy not-smiles as she starts leading Pearl towards the warp pad. The weight in her hand is all she could want, but old habits die hard, and she finds her other hand pressing against Garnet’s bicep, just for the sake of double contact, having an anchor.

As they step onto the pad, Pearl realises with a jolt that she never said the words back. _I love you too._ The stream rushes up around them, evening shine and crystal and starlight. Pearl looks up at Garnet, at the beautiful, impassive face that she’s known for so long. She doesn’t have to say it, she decides with a warm pang. Garnet already knows.


End file.
